Powdered or dried food and beverage products or intermediates (“powders”), such as beverage drinks, instant hot chocolate, chocolate intermediates, freeze-dried and spray-dried instant coffee, and powdered sauces, such as powdered cheese sauces, are well known. These powders are formed by a variety of processes. For example, instant coffees may be formed by deriving a liquid coffee concentrate intermediate (commonly known as coffee liquor) from coffee beans by the well known processes of roasting and extraction. Optionally, the coffee concentrate may be aromatized by the addition of coffee aromas stripped from an extracted coffee intermediate, again as well known in the art. The coffee concentrate is then subjected to various foaming and drying steps to produce a dry granular end product that can be reconstituted into a coffee beverage by the addition of hot water. Food powders are popular with consumers as they provide an economical, fast and simple way of preparing a food product or beverage. Powders are also used in manufacturing processes as intermediate ingredients that are hydrated with fluids and optionally mixed with other ingredients and subjected to further processing to form food and beverage products that are sold to consumers.
However, many available powders suffer from several drawbacks. One problem with current food and beverage powders is that when they are combined with a fluid, such as hot water, they tend to clump together and not evenly disperse throughout the fluid. Poor dispersion can lead to clumping of the particles in addition to non-hydrated regions of powder which never fully ‘wet’. For example, upon adding the powder to the fluid, the powder will often agglomerate and float to the top of the fluid or sink to the bottom in a clump rather than disperse into the fluid.
The consumer is often required to wait a sufficient amount of time, often several minutes, for the clump of powder to sufficiently disperse into the fluid before consuming the food product or beverage. Alternatively, it may become necessary for the consumer to vigorously stir or shake the fluid to disrupt the clump and disperse the powder throughout the fluid. Even after the consumer waits a sufficient amount of time and/or shakes or stirs the fluid to disperse the powder, the powder may not entirely disperse into the fluid, and instead may form smaller clumps throughout the fluid. Requiring the consumer to wait or stir a solution formed from combining a powder with a fluid is undesirable. In addition, in situations where the consumer cannot remove all of the clumps, particularly in the case of beverages such as instant coffee or hot chocolate, the food or beverage may exhibit poor consistency and gritty mouth feel properties that are undesirable to the consumer.
Similarly, in food or beverage manufacturing processes, such shortcomings may delay the processing and/or requiring additional mixing steps which can add expense and complexity to the production systems. Due to the propensity of the prior powders to agglomerate they tend to not be free flowing, which can render manufacturing difficult. Once common solution was to use starches, flow aids, and other emulsifiers to enhance dispersibility and flowability. Such additional ingredients are often undesired.
Another possible solution contemplated to increase flowability and dispersibility may be to decrease the particle size of the powders. However, in many types of powdered food and beverage products, decreasing particle size actually enhances these shortcomings and makes the agglomeration problems worse. In some cases, for example, the clumping or agglomeration of the powder typically increases in relation to the decreasing size of the powder particles. Many powders having a small particle size, e.g., a D90 below about 100 microns in size, often exhibit more agglomeration and clumping than powders having a larger particle size, e.g., above about 100 microns. In this regard, these powders may not adequately disperse into a fluid or may require additional time or effort to sufficiently disperse the powder into the fluid.